News

(The following is an excerpt from the guest commentary originally published in The News-Gazette. For the full op-ed and guest appearance, please visit this link.) “Ultimately, the facts make it clear that not everyone is going to go to college. Read more »

If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you: Winning a contract to work on U.S. Bank Stadium—located in downtown Minneapolis and home of the NFL’s Vikings—wasn’t just any old job for SMACNA contractors MG McGrath Inc. Sheet Metal and Albers Commercial Kitchen Services. It was one that involved creating one of the largest and most unique structures in North America. Read more »

Delegates to the Laborers convention unanimously re-elected union President Terry O’Sullivan and the entire executive board at their convention in late September. But they also took on other unions over construction of oil pipelines.Read more »

(By Mark Gruenberg, PAI Staff Writer) New pro-worker rules, announced in late September and the beginning of October by Obama administration agencies, have the potential to benefit millions of workers in coming years. Predictably, radical right House Republicans screamed about them.

The rules would particularly aid low-wage and exploited workers, said Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, whose agency unveiled one key final rule, ordering firms that get federal contracts to establish paid sick and family leave for their employees. Read more »

(Union Advocate) Volunteer members of St. Paul-based Pipefitters Local 455 serviced and repaired furnaces free of charge to disabled, elderly and low-income homeowners in the Twin Cities area Saturday during their annual HEAT’S ON day of service. Read more »

(Union Advocate) The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust treated the men and women working to redevelop a property in St. Paul’s Lowertown district to lunch Aug. 31, highlighting the trust’s unique approach to investing union pension funds in union-built construction projects. The development, 333 on the Park, is transforming an eight-story office building, originally constructed in 1913, into an apartment building with 134 market-rate units. Read more »

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich has been a longtime proponent of unions and the power of people to unite in their workplaces to improve their lives."We have to increase, not reduce, the bargaining power of average people," he says. In this video, he explains one of the most misunderstood labor-management issues of our time: so-called "right-to-work" laws. They are, he says, all about reducing power for workers and increasing profits for corporations.

The public has the right to expect that Minnesota’s construction contractors will comply with the law when working on government projects. That expectation led to the 2015 enactment of the Responsible Contractor Law, which requires contractors on public projects to satisfy the minimum legal criteria to work on public projects. This law has definitely caught the attention of those contractors who previously corrected wage violations with only restitution payments, before returning to the public bidding arena consequence free. Read more »